Dayton's Income Tax Makes Every Year Terrible for Jobs

Reality forced the Dayton Daily News to write a story titled "2013 was bad year for jobs in Dayton". That had to hurt. There's no better propaganda organ for Dayton's thieving rulers than the Dayton Daily News. They seem to publish fantasies about things improving in Dayton every day, but they rarely publish stories about Dayton's real, long, painful decline. They seem to quote some politician or bureaucrat saying Dayton's future looks bright every day, but rarely, if ever, do they challenge these parasites about their 50 year record of failure. Their propaganda is both hilarious and sickening.

But this headline downplayed how bad the news really is. From the article, "The Dayton metro area lost 600 jobs last month, and the region’s labor force shrank to the lowest level since at least 1983, which made for a disappointing finish to a disappointing year for the region, according to preliminary data released Tuesday." The DDN characterizes this epic failure not only of our rulers but of our system of rule - a failure that has damaged tens or hundreds of thousands of lives over the decades and sends the young, best and brightest packing for greener pastures every year - the same way they describe sports teams losing. To the victims, Dayton's economy is a disaster which shouldn't be belittled.

But true to form, instead of questioning why our rulers consistently make the economy worse while claiming they're making it better, the DDN can't help but say something ridiculous to protect the system and the parasites who rule us, "After showing signs of vitality in 2012, the local job market mostly regressed last year." I travel around Dayton quite a bit and talk to many people. Like most Daytonians, I missed those signs of vitality. Not in 2012. Not in many years. Everywhere, every year, I see decline. Every year there's fewer businesses and more abandoned buildings. Every year people are worse off. Every year there's more looting projects, which our rulers laughably claim boost our economy, dragging Dayton into the ground. The record of decline is indisputable. The truth hurts.

The story, as usual, also proclaims new jobs are coming soon, just wait, but no stories report more jobs are being destroyed by government looting.

Dayton's problem is simple and obvious: Dayton's rulers are looting more than producers can overcome. Our system of rule is legalized corruption. Rulers legally steal money through taxes and use it to enrich themselves and their cronies through wasteful, worthless and counter-productive pseudo-services while making the vast majority of us poorer for having our money stolen. Naturally, this system attracts the worst parasites to work for it. A recent study verified the obvious, that students who cheat in school are more likely to seek government jobs. Power corrupts, and it attracts corrupt people to it. That's why it doesn't matter who voters elect. The legalized looting system itself is the problem.

Dayton's income tax is the most damaging looting tool our city rulers use. Every outside investor I talk to cites the income tax as the reason they avoid Dayton. They'll invest in the suburbs but not the city because of that tax. Every businessman I talked to who worked for a company fleeing Dayton pointed to the income tax as a reason for leaving. I've talked to a lot of business people over the years. They all avoid Dayton's income tax. The only outsiders investing in Dayton are cronies of our rulers who receive tax incentives. That income tax is killing Dayton.

But the people of Dayton may be figuring this out. On May 6, Dayton's temporary 0.5 percent income tax goes to voters for renewal, but the DDN reports, "That 0.5 percent tax expires on Dec. 31, 2014, and rather than asking for another six- or eight-year renewal, [Mayor] Whaley said the city will ask residents to make it permanent." They're making the tax permanent, but another article reveals they're hiding it from voters. The ballot doesn't mention permanence. Neither article reports the negative impact of the tax on Dayton's economy. None ever do.

Daytonians have an opportunity to overrule our parasitic rulers and improve their personal lives and Dayton's economy by rejecting this tax. Tax breaks needn't be just for cronies. If voters reject this tax, every Dayton business, big and small, and worker will get a tax break, and they deserve it. Furthermore, this would give outside investors a tax incentive to invest in Dayton instead of the suburbs. Rejecting this tax would be a true step toward turning around Dayton's decline.

The first bureaucracy cut should be the economic development bureaucracy. Because everything government has, it first steals from taxpayers, it's impossible for government to improve our economy. All it can do is steal wealth out of the economy, waste plenty on parasitic government workers, then reinsert less wealth into the economy, enriching government's cronies who line the pockets of politicians in return. While legal, this system is corrupt to the core, and it can only be counter-productive.